


Ashes, Ashes

by Hattingmad



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Gen, M/M, Twisted, Wtf did I just write, note the archive warning pls, warped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 19:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2080692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hattingmad/pseuds/Hattingmad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We all fall down.</p>
<p>Or: you can't be friends with the Composer and come out unscathed; love becomes obsession, and Neku isn't getting any younger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes, Ashes

Too close.

If you stand too close to the fire for too long, it doesn’t burn. No, it becomes part of you, immolating everything you are until you forget that you’ve ever wanted anything else, could ever want anything else.

Neku found that out the hard way.

* * *

 

When you’re friends with Shibuya’s Composer, his music—it bleeds into you, twists you up inside and spits you back out with notes jangling around in your soul that weren’t there before, beautiful notes, harmonies you want to wrap yourself up in like some gorgeous fur coat. And Josh is Shibuya is _you_ , all the marionette strings so tangled up with each other that you’re not sure who would bleed, who would fall, if you cut them. And you don’t want to. Your other friends all worry, but you know better; you know what’s at the bottom of that rabbit hole, you know just how deep it goes, you know what’s at the end of that tunnel of light when you die and you _need it_.

Need it more than breathing.

* * *

Neku tried leaving Shibuya, once. He wanted to take a vacation. The farther he got from his district, the weaker he got, until he was curled up in a miserable little ball in his hotel room, shaking and coughing up bile, a junkie in desperate need of his next fix. He had to cut the trip short.

But when he came home, everything was better.

Instantly. Just like that, he was cured, the city embracing him, coiling around him, slipping between his ribs to clamp a tight vise around his heart.

(The rhythm of that essential organ forever altered: _Never leave_. Squeeze. _Stay with me_. Squeeze. _Never leave_. Squeeze.)

It took him a little longer to accept that loving Shibuya meant loving Josh, but he got there. Every time he saw the Composer, he had to resist the urge to launch himself lip-first right at his stupid ( _gorgeous favorite best_ ) face. That might have been his first clue.

When Joshua said “dear” like always and Neku almost responded with “am I?” because he wanted it to be true, wanted it so much his teeth ached—there was clue # 2.

And when he figured it out, it came on him so suddenly that he wasn’t sure how he’d kept it a secret until then, if he was being honest. The only thing was…if he was alive and Josh was, well, **not** , it didn’t work. And Neku wasn’t getting any younger. Soon, he’d be too old for Josh to want him, too old to look proper and right at his side. Neku couldn’t bear that, even if Josh never wanted him back.

* * *

When you’re in love with a city, with the dead kid at its heart who’s more alive than any of the people you’ve ever met, in love with the ridiculous dangerous Reaper’s Game bubbling beneath the surface, and you’re aging out of your chance at happiness… well, you know what you have to do.

What you were **always** going to have to do.

* * *

God, Shibuya’s beautiful from this far up.

The wind in your hair feels like a benediction as you rocket through the sky like a falling star. And you know when you hit the ground, your body will paint the city with its colors, your blood soaking the streets to give back all it gave to you.

And then.

And then.

The city has you. Josh has you.

You’ll never leave. But then, you’ll never want to.

* * *

Did you have other hopes, other dreams, once?

You’re running out of time to r

                                                    e

                                                       m

                                                           e

                                                              m

                                                                  b—-


End file.
